Comments on: Roots Watch: Americana’s Younger Than That Nowhttp://www.engine145.com/roots-watch-americanas-younger-than-that-now/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=roots-watch-americanas-younger-than-that-now
A Roots Music PublicationMon, 29 Dec 2014 01:36:34 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.1By: Rickhttp://www.engine145.com/roots-watch-americanas-younger-than-that-now/#comment-7631
Tue, 25 Oct 2011 01:15:55 +0000http://www.engine145.com/?p=17457#comment-7631Interesting article Barry. I first encountered the concept of “Americana” music head on back around 2002 or 3 when Denver radio station KCUV was a full time dedicated station that I listened to online. The DJ’s were free to focus on the Americana artists they liked and they took requests, something which soon became quite burdensome. About the only artist roster limitation was that Top 40 commercial pop-rock country artists were not played as they wanted no playlist overlap with Top 40 country radio. After a year or so the station wasn’t earning enough money to survive in a pure Americana format, so the format was tweaked but it was fun while it lasted!

A quick story: Because they played a song by Nashville session piano player Steve Conn, I once requested Steve’s intentionally creepy “I’ve Got Your Dog” just to see if KCUV would spin it. They did that one time. A few days later a guy who had just broken up with his girlfriend requested that song again and dedicated it to her. She was listening and called in to dedicate Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” to him in response! Best dedications ever! (lol)

I try to catch Americana acts when they come to LA if they play in smaller, cheap venues and the audiences usually are mostly young people in their 20’s. LA has spawned its own Americana acts like The Dustbowl Revival, which combines a string (and brass) band sound evoking folk and pop songs of the 1930’s mixed with dixieland jazz. This band is building a following of 20 somethings, which is very encouraging.

I’m just glad the Americana organizations and radio shows exist to support a wide variety of artists the commercial format radio stations wouldn’t touch, even if I don’t care for most of them.